The sports industry is a very lucrative business internationally. The sports market in North America was worth $60.5 billion in 2014. It is expected to reach $73.4 billion by 2019. One of the biggest reasons for growth is the projected revenue increases derived from media rights deals in conjunction with gate revenues. Over $3.2 billion was wagered in sports bets in Las Vegas casinos in 2011 with $1.34 billion wagered on American football. The Premier League (English/Welsh football league, i.e. soccer) is a $5.3 billion business. The National Football League (American Style Football) is a $13 billion business. The World Cup is predicted to have a total economic impact of $30.8 billion by 2023.
With sporting fans, players, sporting clubs, companies, and sponsors investing such tremendous funds, time and resources in the global sports industry, there is an expectation that the quality of the sporting product to have the highest level of integrity. One manner to ensure this is to make sure that the officiating be precise and completely fair in sporting contests. Corruption has always been a factor when dealing with professional sports from the American Baseball Black Sox Scandal, to fixed Cricket matches, to basketball point shaving scandals, to most prominently in Association Football match fixing. Despite this, there remains a high commitment from league officials to maintain the highest standard of integrity with sports.
However, recently, there have been a surge of international scandals and allegations regarding match fixing, referee corruption, illegal sports gambling, and player collusion relating to professional sports. For example, FIFA independent ethics committee has been probing numerous cases of suspected corruption while serving lifetime bans from the sport of football (soccer) for corrupt officials found guilty. American football quarterback, Tom Brady, was suspended by the League for four games in 2016, for instructing staff to deflate his footballs below the required level so that he would have an illegal advantage over his opponent. Incidents like this are unacceptable in the world of sports.
In addition to avoiding this type of corruption, it is also preferable to provide methods and systems to avoid unintentionally providing an advantage for one opponent over another opponent by imprecise officiating. One manner of maintaining a high level of sports integrity, it is necessary to regulate sports officiating. What is necessary is tools to provide an improved means and methods for more accurate officiating in professional sports.
In some sporting situations, it may be necessary to quickly determine precise measurements. For example, a game official may need to determine the proper yardage after a play, measure the distance of a game ball, player, or game object from a particular location on the field of play. The official may further need to mark the location on the field. Thus, the conventional strategy is to have game officials quickly approximate this distance so that game play may continue. This often causes problems because the conventional strategy does not provide for precise or accurate real-time measurement. For example, imprecise measurement may unfairly advantage one team over another team.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved means and methods for precision real-time measurement. This need and other needs are satisfied by the various aspects of the present disclosure.